THE BLAST OF THE POSSIBLE

December 2010

The Möglichkeitsraum (The Blast of the Possible) is a research project on the moving image in relation to the working of memory and conceptions of history. The project is designed for a temporary performance and lecture platform for archives, documents, and films. It is an extended post-production studio on stage, where the display of montage is spatially arranged for live performances. The spoken dialogue between the artist and researchers and a selection of images, sounds, texts and video will be woven into a ‘live essay film.’ The moment of creating a new document is thus made transparent, presented as a process of thinking, reflection, decision making. It develops a logic of inclusion and exclusion, assigning political and ethical responsibility and authority to the documentarist, who writes historical narratives that shape collective memory.

Angela Melitopoulos presented two archival performances that were developed for the Berlin Documentary Forum with two cultural researchers, Brian Holmes and Bettina Knaup.

The screen performance with Brian Holmes (December 3, 2011) on Extra-disciplinary Art Practices and Media Activism is based on his archival essay ‚Four Pathways Through Chaos’. Activism in a networked society has to confront a complex order of cybernetic norms governing affects, thought, desire and social relations through automation, economic deregulation and overcoded environments. So-called ‘second-order cybernetics’ operates through the mapping of dispersed, multi-agent populations, aiming for the modulation of complex flows; its characteristic media form is the worldwide web. Four Pathways through Chaos is based on Brian Holmes’ political theory about cybernetic governance and extra-disciplinary art practices /media activism. This experimental screen performance exemplifies a live montage on four historically of different audiovisual regimes that occurred in the USA since World War Two.

The screen performance with Bettina Knaup (December 4, 2011) is based on the exhibition re.act.feminism – performance art of the 1960s & 70s today curated by Bettina Knaup and Beatrice E. Stammer. It shows documentations and videos about feminist performances in the 60ties and 70ties and their relation to forms of re-enactment, archival research and documentary projects. (www.reactfeminism.org). The emergence of feminism and performance art ctritiqued patriachal forms of knowledge production, political speech, bio-politics and the capitalizing function of the art market. The Blast of the Possible with Bettina Knaup adress a relational feminism that transgress gender relations and identity politics towards urban bio-politics, therapy and art and a ritualized speech form emerging from daily routine.

Angela Melitopoulos will discuss the project and its continuation in collaboration with the association Utopiana.

Organized by Utopiana and the Théâtre Saint-Gervais Genève

With the support of the Canton of Geneva and the Résidences secondaires.